The ICEF Education Fund, the charitable arm of events and networking firm ICEF will donate €7,000 to support Travel Safe International, the educational and training division of international charity Child-Safe, which works to safeguard and protect children involved in educational, cultural or language trips overseas.
ICEF has celebrated its 100th Canada Course Graduate, which is a specialised training course for education agents that wish to display sound knowledge of Canada as a study destination. A Colombian agent became the fourth from his company to complete the CCEA.
A record 1,000 educators, exhibitors, speakers and agents attended ICEF's North America workshop in Miami this month, making the three-day event the largest of its kind in North America. 14% of the 402 agents attending had not been to an ICEF workshop before, contributing to an increase of 24% in participants overall.
A multilingual course search and student review website is set to be launched by mid-December, aiming to become the Trip Advisor of the language school industry. Created by ICEF, Coursefinders allows students to search for and directly contact language schools around the world, leaving star-rated reviews and comments about their experience afterwards.
China's largest agency association has begun an evaluation process that will help to regulate agencies in China. BOSSA is receiving government support to fund the inspection process and the outcome of its first round of assessments, focusing on Beijing-based agencies, will be published in March 2014.
The ICEF i-graduate Agent Barometer indicate that Australia has gained ground in the overall attractiveness of study destinations while Canada inched ahead of the UK to be ranked second in the world in terms of overall appeal for international students.The US topped the list with 73% of agents saying it is a "very attractive" study destination.
Global networking company ICEF has opened a new office in Beirut, Lebanon, signalling its intention to tap into what it sees as a burgeoning demand for study abroad in the MENA region. A skyrocketing population in the region is one reason given for a predicted boom in interest in studying abroad.
China's position as a study destination will be solidified in October, when more than 200 Chinese and Western institutions convene at the country's first ever conference promoting in-bound mobility. China wants to increase international enrolments from 250,000 to 500,000 by 2020—a number the Beijing Overseas Study Service Association (BOSSA) says is easily reachable.
